WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Sorry Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The Reality of Summer

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Summer can be a shift and challenge for families once school is done. Michaela discusses the pros and cons of summer and the less helpful answers offered on Ms. Magazine. 

Hello and welcome to strength and dignity. This is Michaela Estruth and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Well, it's officially June. We're actually almost nearly two weeks into June and summer is underway. I know I'm starting to get into the swing of things, trying to adjust to the summer months, a different rhythm, a different schedule working versus being in classes and college. And it's just always a shift for every single person, the shift from a school year ending to the summer months or just for family in general.

And that's actually what I wanted to talk about today. I went on Ms. Magazine's website and there was an article recently published just a couple days ago. And it's titled, Schools Out for the Summer and Moms Already Need a Break, which is honestly very fair because the shift to summer is a hard shift. It's really hard, especially when kids are used to going to school from basically 7 a.m. to at least. least three, if not four or five, that gives their day. It takes up their whole day and it gives their day structure. And then you have sports in the evening or drama in the evening or all these different activities and involvements. It really makes sense why time flies during the school year. And then all of that goes away in the summer and, or at least most of it, especially obviously

the school part. And it's really hard for kids and parents to adjust to it. It's hard for me as a young woman just by myself being like, oh my gosh, my days are so different. The rhythms are so different. It feels so much longer and it's really nice, but also I'm trying to get used to this and what do I do to fill my time and what is productive and how do I steward that time well? It's a really important question to be asking and it's a hard question to answer. So I wanted to look at this article. It's written by Aline Lipkin. And to be honest, she makes some pretty good point. She's a good writer. She makes fair claims and addresses things that are true challenges. I would say that her solutions or the things that she highlights aren't exactly what I

would focus on or definitely not offer as solutions. But we'll get into that. We'll dive in. So let's start off with what she says. She said at the beginning of her article, she goes, never mind rising stress at the cost of summer activities, the juggle of schedules that shift every few weeks with a patchwork of camps and jankalike balancing of drop-offs and pickups, especially with multiple kids in the mix. All the while, parents still maintain a work schedule that for most doesn't break for the summer as well. And I totally get that, as I was saying, the summer really shifts in the schedule, especially for the children. And it's hard. It's really hard to adjust to that, especially because kids need structure. That's what's so wonderful about the

school day is that it gives kids structure and that there's this class in that class or this activity and that activity lunch recess whatever all of it is a structure for kids and that is so important especially in the home I mean even during the school year they have structure at home when we eat dinner when we do homework when we do go to bed all of all of that is structure for kids and they get into a rhythm and it's extremely helpful and extremely important for them from the youngest age. My sister just had her first about nine months ago now, and it's so evident how much he needs structure. And I mean, I'm obviously talking to people who know this, but if he's off on his nap or off on when he eats and it throws a lot of things out of balance for his world because he needs

that structure in order to be happy in order to stay, you know, rested. energized for the day and then when it's time to go to bed it is time to go to bed and it's very evident so it's just so true that all of us as human beings thrive off of structure but especially children and in addition to that i wanted to add that structure is important but structure doesn't always have to be fun fun fun all the time i think that's what's really hard especially about our culture we've basically like trained ourselves to constantly be amused constantly be entertained and expected that from other people, expected that, especially in the way the children now engage with electronics, that they engage with adults. It's like they expect to be entertained

all of the time. And that's not what is the focus. That's not the job is to have it always be fun. It's structure is important to show kids what a rhythm is and what is prioritized, what's important how we can have fun, how we can also use our time well. And so it's not just a turn on the TV. It's not a book every single camp or every single activity. All of those are good things. They're not bad enough themselves. But I actually saw an article yesterday on the Washington Post. It's like an advice column. And a lot of people, a lot of moms were saying be bored. Let your kid be bored. That's really, really important. Because then the imagination, and the creativity starts to flourish for those kids because they're bored and they want to do something.

And instead of just throwing a fit or expecting to go somewhere or do something or turn on the TV as an easy solution, no, be bored and then have a remedy that is beneficial. You know, draw, write, read, go outside. Any of those things. Kids' imaginations are amazing. and they should just be allowed to flourish. And honestly, they flourish when they're bored because they have time to create. And it's really beautiful to see.

I was a nanny during the summers between my high school years. And I nannied for a couple different families, but both the importance of structure and the importance of boredom was clearly evident to me as the one who was at home with the kids while the parents were away. because yes, it is fun to go play with the kids. And of course I will and we'll run around and we'll go to the pool and we'll play tag and we'll do this and we'll do that. But it's also okay to tell that six-year-old, hey, go read. We're going to do 40 minutes of reading because I have to clean up the kitchen and clean it breakfast. We just had breakfast and I need to do this or your mom asked me to do that. And

I need you to go clean your room or, you know, giving them tasks is helpful and it provides structure for them. And it also provides the expectation that, yes, I can have fun when it's time to have fun. But there's also time to be productive and time to rest and time for you to be alone and have some of your own time. Just all of that. It was a huge learning lesson every single day. And every single summer, just how kids function, how they work, how they relate. It's really beautiful to see the design of the Lord in a child and the unique design in each of them, the different ways and the different questions that they ask. Anyways, I loved nannying.

It was a great time, but it was also exhausting and made me just grow in respect for my mom and all the other moms who do that all the time just sacrificially. and are continually gracious and patient. And let me just say that my patients grew every summer. I thought I had learned patience and then turns out I still haven't and I still need to learn more and more about it every day. But nannying is one way to learn patience for sure. Okay, so one thing I will say about this article that I didn't love, and this was the main

point of the article, was I loved the emphasis on mothers and on, you know, know, the home life and the shift from school to summer. But then kind of the underlying point of all of that, she emphasized child care and then becoming a loud voice in your vote to demand more funded child care and all of these state-promoted, government-promoted, aid industries, whatever you want to call them as the solution. But let's just say right now that while child care is good and beneficial for a lot of families and it helps provide that structure, it doesn't replace the family. It doesn't. A government provided institution cannot replace mom and dad and it cannot replace the importance of family. So we'll get more into that for sure. But one point that she highlighted

that I thought I didn't know the statistic and it's fascinating, but she said, All year around, child care can exceed rent payments by at least 25% nationwide and is more than double that in eight states and Washington, D.C., according to a new report from the child care aware of America. So, yeah, that's crazy. 25% above rent payments. That's a significant amount. Obviously, I've never looked at child care expenses, but I know that they're extremely expensive. I didn't know it was that much. And so I think her point is that it should be lowered and that more women should be advocating for that.

But obviously here's the issue. And I don't want to get too much into economics also because it's not my forte. But all of that money has to come from somewhere. And so if the cost per child is being lowered for families, that means that the likelihood is that these child care programs are being funded by taxpayer dollars. So this push for child care, she turns to. kind of into a promotion of this organization, Chamber of Mothers, and she's basically advocating women. She explains what Chambers of Mothers is. It's a nonpartisan 501C3 organization. And she says, it wants to put political activism on Mother's Summer to-do list, not to add another burden, but rather

to use this time to get ahead with voter registration, understand ballot initiatives, and prepare for the upcoming fall elections. This week marked the launch of their vote like a mother campaign, which aims to make it easy for mothers to use the less hectic summer months, not just past May timber, which parallels the holidays with its glut of end of the semester activities, and prepare to vote in their best interests. Chamber of Mothers is committed to changing the lack of widespread affordable and accessible child care, as well as advocating for federally protected paid family leave. Their third pillar is maternal mortality and achieving better outcomes.

Okay, so that's what's really interesting. that for me when I was reading to this article, I was like, oh, this is really interesting. A article on Ms. Magazine is advocating and supporting motherhood and mothers and kind of praising the hard job that it is and asking for more help, but then turning to something that isn't necessarily probably going to be the most helpful and demanding basically more taxpaying dollars to go to funding these organizations. Yeah, it was just, it was so interesting to me because one of the last articles I covered was on around Mother's Day and it was basically like it was not in praise of mothers at all. It was victimizing and it did not praise the hard work of mothers.

And yet this, that's what this article is doing, but then demanding more from a government perspective. And to be frank, it's not the job of the government or taxpayers. paying dollars to support the family. At least in my personal view, that is not, that's like overstep from the government. We don't want our government in our homes. Like we want, I want my family to be my family and to be my safe place not to be the place provided by the government because ultimately if like the government gives you something, they can also take it away.

And so this is just to me points to God's beautiful. design of the family and the way that families are supposed to come around each other. And unfortunately, I think we've lost a lot of that in the United States and worldwide, just with modern technology and spreading across the country, moving, jobs, all of it. But I think we've lost a lot of the family raising of children and especially generational support. So moms, it's not, it's moms and dads and grandparents and siblings. Right now I have just had the blessing of having my sister, like I just mentioned she had, she's just had her first child and she've been in town visiting me. I've gotten to spend nearly a month with them. And it's been such a joy and such a

delight to watch her be a mother to her son. And also, to watch my family come around and love and support her and him and each other in our time and in sacrificing who can be with him while she's away. And she actually, she does work a job and she has come back to finish that job well, but she needs the help of someone to be with her kid while she's gone. And then she can come home and be with him. And it's a balance and it's hard. And it's, I really do have respect for all the mothers who do it without any help. don't know how they can. But the point being is that that's the design of a family, is generational support, generational

legacy and care for one another. And I think it's so beautiful and a much better and more reliable system because it's ultimately designed by God. So that would be my answer to a better solution than this promotion of Chamber of Mothers and voting and child care. as an answer to how to keep kids in structure during the summer. This is Strength and Dignity, and I'm Akila S. Truth. Thanks for joining.

We are in the middle of talking about an article from Ms. Magazine, and it's discussing summer and the way that that changes the role of the family and the demands on moms and dads and family structure expectations for the summer. And so this article kind of made all of these points about why summer would be hard and then turns to promoting a non-partisan 501C3 called Chamber of Mothers and then their campaign Vote Like a Mother. And this is the language that I thought was really interesting. I definitely thought it was appealing for basically the complete opposite reason that I think

this woman included it in the article, but I'm going to read it. It says, Vote Like a Mother is a Rallying Cry, said co-founder Raina Boston. According to Egrenberg, that's one of the women who is behind this campaign. She says, whatever your concerns are, whatever you hold most dear, be sure to ascertain where candidates and issues line up with your values and a vote according to your own interests. We don't believe in the mommy wars and dividing lines between working and at-home mothers. All mothers work. All mothers have a point of view on how to build a country that works for them.

We're asking them to vote for the leadership and issues that they care about. Okay, I'm just going to say it right now. Those are probably, that's probably the most I've ever agreed with an article on Ms. Magazine. And I know it's a quote inside the article from this woman, but it's really true. And I probably agree in very different reasons. But voting like a mother is super important because mothers see the way that, especially in education, but all of these government issues and policies impact children. And they talk all the time about, I want to protect my kids. I don't want my kids growing up at a world in which X. Or, you know, you hear the stories of moms taking their kids to the local library and

being confronted with things that they don't want their kids to see, especially in the month of June, whether that's LGBTQ or drag queen hour or any of those issues that have now become political issues that moms want to vote on because they're in effort to protect their kids. It's also really interesting that this is a campaign that's trying to appeal to mothers. because if you look at statistics across the country, typically mothers, not all mothers, but many mothers are extremely conservative because of the issues that are being raised and what they see as impacting their children. So I definitely agreed with that sentence, but probably from like the

complete opposite of what they were hoping for. But I did like the line that they don't believe in mommy wars of dividing work moms and at-home moms. And they said all mothers work. And that is abundantly true. And I want to focus on that in terms of the work that a mom is doing at home is no less valuable. Honestly, I think it's more valuable than work outside of the home because she's raising little souls and she's sacrificially pouring in time and effort to those hearts and those minds. And it's hard work. It's sacrificial work. It's extremely challenging. It has it's hard moments. It is extremely testing of patience and growing in virtue, absolutely. And it is important for mothers to be voting for their kids because they do have the right to vote. And so

to take opportunity of that and do so from the perspective of what world do I want my children to grow up in is extremely important. And it's a good appeal. And I think this article is aware of that and is trying to sway the other way, but still addressing the issue of the role of motherhood and the importance of it in not only the family, but also in society and culture. Okay, so I do just have to end because this is how the article ended with quite a lot of victimizing language. She said, just past Mother's Day, the flowers have likely faded alongside the social media post lauding the hard work of mothers and urging them to indulge in the self-care for day versus investing in system change. So the point of this article is saying invest in system change.

Be forward, be like have your vote promote all of all of these ideologies or ideas or foundations or whatever words you want to use for it to use your voice. That's the point of this article. But she uses complete victimizing language of, oh no, there's no longer people posting about how hard your job is or people giving you flowers and recognizing you or bringing you chocolate or telling you to take the day off. None of which I am making fun of all of obviously Mother's Day is wonderful and we ought to honor our mothers more than just on Mother's Day. I've definitely said that. But I just found it really funny that she was like pitying mothers because we're past the like craze, I guess, of Mother's Day. So that's why I want to as,

I often do. Turn to Proverbs 31 at the end to close, just to point to the praise that this offers to all women, to all mothers who care for their households, who care for their family. And the passage, as I've referenced many times, she works late hours and early morning. She's known in the gates. She sells at the marketplaces. She works both in the home and outside the home, and she's recognized for her hard work, but the beauty of her hard work is that she doesn't sacrificeally. And her husband praises her and says, many have done well, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she is to be praised. Let her praise be known in the gates.

So thanks for listening to Strength and Dignity. I'm Michaela Estruth, and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.